Hello Darkness My Old Friend…

Dude still doesn’t look like the type that likes old tunes…

I have not come to talk with you again. You have come to talk with me…

Paul Simon’s words seem to fit what I’ve been feeling lately: darkness…

But before I delve into all that… Your friendly neighborhood music nerd is going to give you guys some exposure! Don’t worry, this will be kind of fun.

As a matter of fact, I recently did this to my mom when she came to visit me. Now… she’s old enough to remember when “The Sounds Of Silence” was first released, so of course she knew it and heard it very clearly in her head. But I played it for her anyway, just as a refresher. Then I played the remake by the band Disturbed, “The Sound of Silence“. Seriously, one is titled “sounds” and the other “sound”… Anyway… I liked some of Disturbed’s other tunes, so I figured I’d check this remake out. I don’t like remakes, but this one blew me away! Honestly, the music and the way it’s sung seems to fit the context of the song better. The lyrics aren’t happy, but Simon and Garfunkel made it a bit light. Disturbed made it dark as it should sound. I played this one for my mom next and she agreed. I think she liked it! Give both a listen!

Wow, me personified in one image! Amazing…

Okay, music lesson over…

Sadly, darkness has come to talk with me again… I don’t talk to it. I try to ignore it and tell it to fuck off. But it’s talking with me again, I’m sorry to say.

I’ve been under a lot of stress lately. I can’t really delve too far into what’s going on because some of it is very personal and, if I did, I couldn’t stay the “cyber shadow” I prefer to be, you know? Suffice it to say, I’ve been dealing with a huge stressor for years that no matter how hard I try to fix it, it keeps getting worse. Add to this another huge stressor that I’ve been dealing with since November and you’ve got yourself a real shit storm…

Check all that apply… or just put a big check over the whole page…

At first I thought my blah feelings were due to a lack of a real winter and the weather flip-flopping between bitter cold and spring-like temperatures. It’s hard to feel cheerful when everything is dead and bare and there’s no pretty snow to cover that shit up. Or maybe it was just a lot of negativity in the air lately.

Sadly, that’s not the case… Since November I’ve been fairly stressed and the situation causing it seems to never get better. It doesn’t always get worse, but it never seems to improve. And because of this, I have to deal with a bunch of fucking idiots on a fairly regular basis. Listen, if you need more information or certain papers, you need to call me, not the other way around! I’m not a fucking mind reader! And if this shit is so all-fired fucking important, why do you wait until I call you to tell me you need it?! Gah!!! I know Im getting jerked around and it’s really pissing me off…

See this…? It’s a depiction of my sanity right now…

So hey, let’s add insult to injury! That won’t be detrimental to my sanity, right?!

Yesterday I received some other disturbing news about the issue I’ve been dealing with for the past few years. Again, I swear to Christ, I’m getting jerked around. But this is the type that will more than likely cost me a butt-ton of money and that’s if I can fix the situation at all. I’m not sure I can anymore. It’s just continually gotten progressively worse over the years until I reached rock bottom with it.

Sadly, this rock bottom isn’t the amusing yet annoying one from a Sponge Bob cartoon…

I know, everyone gets stressed. Everyone, at some point, feels some measure of depression and/or anxiety. Isn’t that what my apparently useless pills I pay for every month are supposed to help counteract…? I’d thought so, but I’m seeing that they, too, are pretty much useless right now. I’m hoping that, if I can at least get through one of these situations without going completely postal, I’ll feel better.

But, at this particular point and time, my sanity feels a lot like this rope, here… There’s just one, tiny, frail little thread holding it all together. And you wonder, how can such a frail little thing possibly hold my sanity together? It can’t handle that kind of stress, being pulled apart that way! And yet, somehow it does… Though it sometimes comes with a price. The last time I was feeling stressed, I began not feeling well, much as I’m feeling now. Well, I had gone to the doctor who did and EKG and sent me to the emergency room. Apparently I had an abnormal blip on it. So after 5 hours and 3 or 4 EKGs, I found out the culprit was stress. Lovely! So this is causing a lot of depression and anxiety because I’m fearful of what could happen if I don’t chill the fuck out…

In my vain attempt at trying to chill out, I decided to start binge watching one of my favorite anime, “Witch Hunter Robin”.

Cartoon Network aired this years ago. Between the title and the commercials, I was hooked before they even showed the first episode! The plot line is just fantastic, though a bit confusing if you don’t pay close attention. It’s especially a great anime for someone like me who has this weird obsession with the idea of how cool it would be to have special powers. Don’t judge… I know there’s at least one or two Harry Potter fans reading this. You can’t tell me you don’t feel the same way…

It’s a rather dark anime, to be honest. In some ways, it’s a bit Goth, in others it’s like an M. Knight Shamalan twist kind of thing.

Either way you look at it, come one, like you wouldn’t want to be Robin… She can set shit on fire! And she can do it just by looking at shit and concentrating on it! How awesome would that be…?! Pretty fucking awesome, I can tell you that! And so, maybe today I’ll go back to my binge watching and try to chill my stressed ass out..

Oh, I Was Bad…

Yeah, they both work pretty much the same…

Let me start by saying, last week was literally the week from hell…

It all started Tuesday morning. I barely made it to the bathroom, which is unusual for me. But hey, I had a fruit and yogurt parfait, with granola, and a cup of coffee from my local McDonald’s. The coffee alone could have caused the problem. The other McDonald’s around me have so-so coffee. The one closest to me? It’s like drinking jet fuel. It’s so damn bitter that, if you add enough sugar to make it taste decent, you’d get diabetes just from that one cup. Creamer does nothing. This black sludge just eats it like a black hole eats stars.

If you don’t get this, you’re too young. Watch “Caddyshack”

Everything seemed okay until about 10 minutes after I’d finished up in the bathroom. That’s when it all went downhill and I thought, “What fresh hell is this?!”

Suddenly, it felt like a thousand knives were stabbing me in the gut all over the place. What the fuck?! Then the nausea started… Lovely.

I wasn’t sure at first what was going on. After 4 days of this shit, I finally went to the doctor. Even she thought it was food poisoning. But no… I ended up giving it to someone else. I caught the dreaded stomach bug… Thank goodness for anti-nausea pills and anti-spasmodics for my gut or I’d have really been miserable.

So since I was already out at the doctor, I decided to stop at DSW. They really shouldn’t shouldn’t send me emails… They were advertising a pair of Vans I fell in love with! Not that I give a shit about the brand name. I just thought they were funky as all hell! White with lime green checkers… For me, the funkier the shoe, the better!

Well, I got a little distracted first… I went into the purse section. I don’t know why I do this. I have about 50 purses and I’m only one person! Why do I keep buying them?! Well, at least it wasn’t that expensive and it’s just my type, so I decided to get it. Then I went in search of the Vans. Sadly, they didn’t have the color I was looking for. The nice salesperson even looked them up online and it seems they only had one size left in that color. It was not the “Bozo the Clown” size that I wear, sadly. But checkered shoes… I had to have them! So I got a cream color with black checks. I love them!

The down side to this is that there’s a Game Stop a few stores up from DSW…

If you haven’t guessed by now, I’m a bit of a nerd… I love science fiction shit, manga, anime… And, to a point, I love video games.

I won’t say I’m a junkie like some people. Far from it. I grew up playing the Atari 2600 (yes, I’m that old). I was so used to using a joystick that I was literally inept at playing the newer system games. It wasn’t until the analog stick came out that I got better.

One game that I’m obsessed with is Crash Bandicoot. I have every single one including the remastered versions. I also love games like Tetris, any of the old Atari compilations, Guitar Hero I was pretty good at and I’m literally in love with Animal Crossing and My Sims. I love to build shit. When I was a kid, it was always blocks and Lego. So, since I was close to Game Stop, I popped in and bought Super Mario Maker 2! I’m terrible at playing the levels, but I love making them! I could play all day! I also bought a rubber duck that looks like Crash Bandicoot as a duck! He’s so funny! And yes, one day I will relax in a hot tub with him!

I wish I could say that my shopping spree ended there (because it was expensive enough). But it didn’t…

Sunday came and I decided I wanted to go to one of my favorite stores. It’s like nerd heaven! I mean that literally… Video games, books, manga, Japanese goodies, Pop! figures, sci-fi stuff, anime, records… If you can geek out on it, they have it! I just wanted to go for the hell of it, to get out of the house since I was feeling better. But, before I left, I had some disturbing news that a Klonopin just wouldn’t touch. Fun times… I was in this weird, depressive, anxious state, feeling my age and I felt sick to my stomach even though I took an anti-nausea pill. In fact, the urge to purge didn’t stop until I went into the store. I had a blast! They had a life-sized Darth Vader I got a picture of myself with and I did crazy amounts of shopping! I got books, Pop! figures, a squishy stress cat, a few Gatchaman DVDs, an “Om” pin, a pen with a little Rey Pop! on top, 2 bottles of lychee Ramune soda (omg, delicious!)… I think that’s about it. I spent almost $160!! What was I thinking?! Well, I wasn’t… I was having a mixed episode. Then I walked up to Joanne’s (the fabric/arts and crafts store) and bought 3 tubes of washi tape that I didn’t need because it was on clearance. And if that wasn’t enough, I ran to Barnes and Nobel and bought that cute little platypus guy from the Fantastic Beasts movies. I felt better, but now I regret spending money I can’t afford to. But that’s normal for a mixed episode…

See, I knew there was a reason that I bought this book at that store…

I’ve heard of wabi sari before, so I picked it up and read the back cover and decided that this was something I needed to read.

My life is very imperfect. Hell, no one has a perfect life. But the idea of living in harmony with the Earth, with life’s imperfections, to live simply and stop striving for shit you don’t need and have everything uncluttered? That sounds like my cup of tea!

I’ve read a few pages of it so far. Sadly, I have to finish another book before I start this one and I have dozens of others just waiting in the wings. I’m beginning to think that calling me a “book whore”, at this point, is a gross understatement. Ah, well… C’est la Vie…

They Walk Among Us…

They look like your family, friends, neighbors, coworkers… But, in reality, they are free rage idiots. They walk among us, free to interact with us, spreading their stupid in their wake…

They don’t even have to be the average working Joe. Nope, they could be the most book smart person in the world, have a job that no one with little brains could get and they could still be a free range idiot.

Idiocy knows no boundaries. It doesn’t discriminate by color, religion, wealth, power, knowledge… You can still be an idiot. And every single day, in some way, shape or form, we’re subjected to these people in some form or another. Personally, I think they should all have to wear signs saying “I’m an idiot”. That way you can steer clear of them.

Yesterday’s interaction with idiots was worse than usual… I had to speak to automated phone menus…

I just heard all of you shudder at the thought. These stupid things are the bane of most everyone’s existence. But, for some reason, they really irk my nerves. To start with, I don’t know why they ask you to press one for English because the agent you finally get after about an hour’s wait can’t speak it anyway, making me think that maybe I didn’t press “1” on my keypad. The majority of the time, the automated system gets stuck in a loop, constantly repeating itself, which is irritating enough. What’s worse is when it says, “Sorry, I didn’t get that. Let’s try again.” Eventually, I just say “representative”. Usually I only repeat this twice before I literally scream into my phone, “Repre-fucking-sentative!!!” It usually works…

Yesterday, I had to call my credit card company. What a nightmare… I have one of those pre-pay cards, the kind you can only spend whatever you add onto it. It’s a good way to build up a bad credit score or to buy things online because if it’s not there, no one can spend it. However, it had its downsides. I put money on to pay a bill, they say the money is there but the company I’m paying say it isn’t. It takes forever for them to process a deposit…

But yesterday I called with a different matter… I had recently made a purchase and had never received the product. While I was at it, I figured I’d add in the transaction from April where the same problem occurred. Now, the transactions part of the app tells you very little. I have the name of the guy from the one in April and a location number. The other I have a PayPal ID name and a location number. So I get this woman on the line from another country that I can hardly understand. Thankfully, she understood the situation and thought it best to send me a new card since the one I have is compromised. I should get the new one in 7-10 days. That’s not exactly true… When My card is up for renewal, they’re supposed to have the new one to me before the other expires, yet they never do and I have to call them to tell them so.

So once the nice lady takes care of me, she transfers me to the disputes department. The woman I spoke to there (again, I didn’t understand her well) told me that they couldn’t dispute an item never received and I would have to contact the seller. Excuse me?! You’re my fucking credit card company! Aren’t you supposed to do something to keep my money safe?! I explained, nicely, that I didn’t have the seller’s information as it’s been almost a year (this is the April transaction) and she told me to look him up. For real…? Then, as for the other transaction, she flippantly told me to contact PayPal and gave me their phone number. Thanks for nothing… Cunt…

So I call PayPal… They have the most annoying automated system. It kept asking me for my account ID or to say “I don’t have one”. I don’t have one, so I told it that. It bumped me back to the main menu! Once again, I had to tell it I didn’t have a PayPal account and round and round we went until I finally got it to understand and I got a human being on the line. She spoke English a bit better than the credit card assholes and was much more helpful. In short, the seller has until the 28th to respond to the dispute and, if not, Pay Pal closes the dispute and I get my money back.

At this point, I’m okay with the PayPal thing, but I’m still not okay with the credit card people. So I decide to call them back to talk to someone with more authority (which means they just switch me over to another representative to yell at). As was the norm, I had to enter my card information so they knew what account to pull up. Imagine my surprise when the automated system told me that my information wasn’t valid! In their infinite wisdom, these jackasses cut my card off immediately! I can’t contact them and I can’t use my card to pay bills! Worse, if I don’t get my card in 7-10 days, I can’t even contact them to fucking tell them!

See what I mean…? Free range idiots; they’re everywhere!

And a word to the wise… Before you choose a prepay credit card, do your homework. Make sure that they don’t employ idiots who spew out computerized responses. I actually sent a more than strongly worded email to the CEO of the company yesterday… I can’t wait to hear his response…

The Ink Is Black, The Page Is White

And that’s the only time that thoughts should be black and white, when you’re writing them down on paper.

Well… unless you prefer some other ink color. There are a plethora of ink colors out there today. I myself sometimes like different colors to write in on occasion. Except blue… I fucking hate blue. Seriously, I once didn’t buy the most awesome pen in the world (yes, I have a pen fetish) simply because it came with blue ink and they had no refills for this thing with black ink. I was pissed…

I apologize to any of you out there saying, “How can you hate blue?! It’s my favorite color!” Yeah, well… I have good reason, actually. Growing up, mine and my sister’s room’s were completely blue. I’m talking dark blue carpet, matte dark sky blue walls, blue curtains, blue bedspread… You get the idea. And this was in a house my parents built after we were both born! I don’t know what they were thinking… Eventually, my sister and I were allowed to paint our rooms. I chose white (my room was small, bright colors make it look larger) and my sister chose this hideous shade of Pepto Bismol pink. She still had bad taste in color to this day…

Anyway, back to the subject…

This morning I was feeling a bit anxious for no reason. Well… except that my bedtime anti-anxiety had worn off and the new one had not yet kicked in. And I know when I’m feeling anxious even if I have no other symptoms because I’ll do weird things to alleviate it before it really kicks in. Like this morning, I was singing. Sometimes I sing a song, sometimes I make a parody of songs. This morning I was singing a parody of “Godzilla” to my half Maine Coon cat, Sebastian. He’s so big, I call him “Catzilla”. You can see where this is going…

I like this Luke Chueh guy… He’s a bit dark..

This is when my thought process started kicking in on the whole anxiety and depression issue. What causes them, really?

Well, if you listen to a lot of therapists (like, oh, I dunno, the ones in the outpatient programs?) they’ll tell you that depression comes when you’re focusing your mind too much in the past and anxiety is a result of worrying or thinking too much of the future. Okay, valid points, I’ll give them that. But that type of thinking is just too black and white for me. I don’t believe that any ideas are completely black and white. There are shades of gray in there somewhere.

Granted, there are other forces at play, here.

In the case of bipolar people, I don’t think it’s as simple as dwelling in the past, future or even the present. Obviously your brain isn’t making enough or making too much of certain chemicals at times (depending on if you’re in a depressive or manic state). See, this is why people don’t take mental illness seriously. It’s that black and white thinking of, dwelling in the past and worrying about the future. If you’re depressed, people tell you to just let that shit go, you’ll feel better. Or, if you’re anxious, they tell you that you worry too much and should stop worrying so much. And when you’re manic, they think you’re normal. Seriously?!? That’s so not normal. But this is what black and white thinking has gotten us. People think you can just snap yourself out of it by being positive or live in the moment. But you can’t always do that…

And this type of thinking, the stigma, is infectious…

You know, I find it amusing that people can tell you to just stop being depressed or anxious, as if it’s that simple a process. It’s all in our heads, after all.

Really…? And do you also go up to cancer patients and tell them to stop having cancer? Do you go up to diabetics and tell them they can process sugar just fine, it’s all in their heads? Or maybe you go up to paraplegics and tell them that they could get up and move around if they really set their minds to it? See how stupid black and white thinking sounds when you put it that way? You can’t stop telling those people to stop being ill any more than you can a mentally ill person. It just doesn’t work that way…

True story of one of my therapy sessions…

My therapist is awesome. I think he was a stoner once (maybe still). Anyway, one of my OCD issues brought on by my anxiety is a crippling fear of germs. I wash my hand a lot… I can’t stress that word enough. A LOT… It interferes in my daily life like you can’t imagine. All I want is to be able to make it all go away so I can live like I used to before it began. So he told me to go on YouTube and look up “Bob Newhart Stop It“. If there’s one thing you do for yourself today, watch that clip. It’s the funniest thing I ever saw! And any of us who have been through any kind of therapy can relate to this. Guaranteed to make you laugh your ass off! I watch it a lot!

Not to be confused with the 50 shades of smut

Okay, Bob Newhart psychotherapy aside…

You know, I love this picture… “50 Shades of Grey (for Designers)”, not to be confused with “50 Shades of Grey for people who like to read smut”. I’m sorry, I’m not into books like that. I’m not a big fan of reading any kind of books, romance or otherwise, that have sex scenes written in. I’d rather have sex then to read about people having unrealistic versions of the act. And lines like, “His manhood sprang forth…” What the fuck is that?! Have you ever known a dick that “sprung forth”?! Like they unzip their pants and you hear “booooiiiiing” as it springs out and slaps you in the face! And, as a woman, I don’t need to know the color/shape/size of the female characters’ nipples or aureoles. And who the hell even uses words like aureoles?! Ugh…

But my distaste for trashy novels aside… I was getting to a valid point. Nothing is black and white. Not any situation or idea. Even if it seems like it from a quick glance at the outside, there are always shades of gray in there somewhere, if you know where to look and look hard enough.

However, that won’t stop black and white thinking… Especially when it comes to mental illness. You’ll still have doctors who shove chemicals down your throat with no thought to the side effects or consequences and won’t believe you when you tell them the med raised your cholesterol and made you fat. You’ll still have therapists that will tell you to just live in the present moment and poof, all your depression from dwelling in the past and anxiety from worrying about the future will magically be gone. And you’ll still have assholes that will tell you that, if you don’t want to be like this, just stop being like this, like it’s that simple.

To those people, I make the Hobbes face. That pretty much says it all…

I always loved Calvin and Hobbes. It was a very witty, intellectual comic. And sometimes it was just flat out dark and goofy. I think I liked it so much because I could relate to Calvin. I was much like him as a child, just without quite as much mischief and the imaginary tiger friend. Actually, I never really had what you’d call an imaginary friend. But I did carry a stuffed Snoopy with me everywhere I went. And I still have him! Anyway… So I’ll close by leaving you one of my favorite Calvin and Hobbes comics that’s relative to this entire goofy diatribe for today. Enjoy!

and She Said: Some Random Things

“Cowboy Killers”, so we used to call Marlboro Reds

A friend of mine had made a post on her Facebook, asking people for some encouraging words because she was going to quit smoking. I’m not one to offer that… I tried to quit once, back when I’d only been smoking 5 years. After 2 days, I was such a bitch, I couldn’t stand myself and started up again. They had given me the patch when I was inpatient and if I could have rolled it up and lit it on fire, I’d have smoked it. Besides, I hated that it made my dreams more vivid than they already were. I don’t know why this was a good idea for bipolar people…

Anyway, the only advice I could offer her was that if she was a non-smoker, she’d know. I had a feeling it wouldn’t make much sense, not unless I explained the entire context. Which, unfortunately, I did… The reply I got was “Wtf is that supposed to mean, if you’re a non-smoker you’ll know?” And so I had to go into this lengthy diatribe I didn’t want to have to get into. But I assume she got the meaning…

What I told her was actually a line from one of my favorite movies. I won’t get into the whole plot, but if you like the whole idea of past lives, watch it, it’s really good!

That particular scene was between Kenneth Branagh and Robin Williams. Williams plays a former shrink (and a bitter one at that) and Branagh plays a private detective who gets hired to find Williams because he was left money in someone’s will. During the conversation, Branagh keeps looking at the pack of cigarettes set near him and fiddling with his pen as if it’s a cigarette. When Williams asks if he’d like one, Branagh replies he doesn’t smoke. Williams calls him on it, to which Branagh replies he’s trying to quit. Williams retorts with, “Don’t tell me you’re trying to quit, man. People who say they’re trying to quit are basically pussies who can’t commit.” Before Branagh left his company, Williams tells him, “People are either smokers or non-smokers, the trick is to find out which one you are and be that. If you’re a non-smoker, you’ll know.” Branagh thanks him and, as he’s walking out of the room, mutters, “Fucking fruitcake…” In any case, I’ve always found that to be a helpful little conversation. I know smoking isn’t good for you, but I’ve really taken that advice to heart. I’ll know if and when I’m ready to be a non-smoker.

It’s funny… I haven’t watched Dead Again in probably two decades or more. Yet I remember the entire exchange from that scene as if I just watched it.

People are often amazed at my ability to recall things, even from the time I was a toddler. I can recall exact exchanges from certain conversations, I know songs that come on the radio and who they’re by form the first note (even if it’s just a drum beat). I recall lyrics and sing along to pretty much every song I’ve ever heard like it’s nothing. And I watch movies alone because I can recite them word for word whether I’m watching them or not and people find it annoying. I also recall things I’ve read in detail.

I don’t have a photographic memory by any means. I have good recall, not total. It’s a fun party trick… But sometimes my recall can be annoying to people exposed to it too much. It’s annoying to me, too. That’s why I can hold grudges so long. The hurt is always fresh when you can recall things so clearly like they just happened…

I do have some good news… I finally got my new glasses Saturday!It only took almost 2 weeks…

But I seem to be having issues I don’t normally have. Unless it’s a huge change (like I haven’t had a new prescription in like 6 years) I don’t usually have an issue. But I’m having some difficulty this time. I’m getting headaches, albeit mild ones, and my eyes are getting so tired… Sadly, if my eyes get tired, so does the rest of me and I end up passing out. So I spent the majority of my weekend sleeping. I have a feeling it’s because my new glasses are trying to correct my astigmatism, which explains the difficulty adjusting.

New glasses mean a new self portrait! Woot!

But… I’m going to wait on that… I have an appointment with my hairdresser on March 10th to get my hair dyed again, but this time I’m going for the ombre look.

My hair is brown, so when it’s dyed, people think it looks black, which is frustrating. But, because my hair is very dry, I don’t want to double process. Not my whole head, anyway… I found a picture on Facebook where someone had dark hair and done an ombre look with pink. I asked my hairdresser and she said we can do that with my purple. But it’s going to cost me… And I mean cost me… It’s also going to take 5 hours! Well… In any case, I’m not making a new portrait until I get my hair done.

Remember Buddy Poke…?

Sometimes I miss MySpace. I had all sorts of cool things. I can’t remember the name, but you could have a pet and decorate their room. There were Neopets (which you can still play online but it’s not as fun) and, of course, Buddy Poke.

You can still use Buddy Poke. It’s an app now that costs $5. It’s fun, but it’s not as cool as it used to be where you could make fun GIF files like this one where my Buddy Poke is doing the Hustle. I mean, sure, you can do some cool things with it, but it’s just not the same anymore…

Things change. I suppose I should learn to change with them. But I’m a creature of habit and when I find something cool, I don’t want it changed. Ah well… it goes to show you can never go back again…

“We’re All Mad Here…”

And soon it will be worse…

About a month ago, I went to my three month meeting with my shrink. Always a joy…

I shouldn’t say that. My shrink is okay. He listens better than all the other ones I’ve seen over the years. He doesn’t always listen, like when I tell him the meds are making me fat or raising my cholesterol, but he listens to the other things I say and gives good advice. He’s a good guy…

When I saw him last month, I had no idea what I was going to be responsible for as I have new insurance. His secretary told me they would just submit it and see what they cover and bill me the rest. That was fine.

Well… yesterday I got a “valentine” from my shrink’s office… I got the bill… And as soon as I opened it, I broke down in tears and had a major meltdown. I pretty much went nuclear. I knew my new insurance was going to suck balls, but I had no idea until I opened that bill…

This is how it goes… The insurance (which is costly) pays for only 20% of my bill and I pay 80%. They paid a whole whopping $18.24. My cost is $106.66! This is why I had a meltdown… Apparently, once the insane $3,000 deductible is met, they pay 80% and I pay 20%. Once I hit the $6,000, then every cent is covered completely. This is the worst plan I’ve ever heard of! That’s the thing, though. Insurance companies are still just companies. They want to make money…

Worse, my shrink only accepts cash (not sure about checks) and won’t accept my flex spending card, which I have to cover shit like this. I was beside myself… Wait, let me just ben over and pull $106.66 out of my ass… I can’t pay that, not even if it’s every three months. So come Monday, I’m going to have to call and explain to the secretary what the deal is and tell her that I can’t afford to come anymore. And, even if I tried finding another shrink here, I’d still be screwed having to pay a ridiculous amount. So I can’t afford to keep seeing my shrink or start going to therapy again…

What a lovely “valentine” I got this year, huh…? It’s like getting this candy heart from “Buffalo Bill”…

I honestly don’t know what to do. I think I’m seriously screwed at this point. Much as I hate my meds, I know I need to take them or I’ll go completely off my rocker. On the plus side, the prescription coverage is awesome and I only pay a few dollars for my meds. The downside is that I literally can’t afford to see the doctor who gives me the meds. What the hell am I supposed to do?! I mean, I don’t qualify for disability, SSI or medical assistance (I’ve tried multiple times), so what the fuck are people in my position supposed to do?! I suppose we’re supposed to bend over and assume the position for the fucking we’re about to get, yeah…?

The only good thing this week was that I did get my piano tuned, finally…

What a cluster fuck… Aside from the fact that the guy who made the appointment had everything all fucked up, I got a call Thursday, the day we rescheduled for, from a different guy at the shop. He told me the guy showed up Tuesday and no one was home. I told him my side and we figured out what happened. The dipshit who set everything up wrote down the wrong house number… I should have suspected when he read back my phone number and kept goofing it up.

But now my piano is tuned and sounds lovely…

I wish it looked as nice as it sounds or as nice as the one pictured. Mine is also a Winter spinet. It has chipped keys, no music rack and a butt-ugly blonde wood veneer, but it’s mine and I love it!

I hadn’t been playing for some time because it was out of tune. Well… Most people wouldn’t have noticed it much. Unfortunately, I have perfect pitch. It’s both a gift and a nightmare… It’s great when I want to play a song I have no music for because I can just plunk it out and play by ear (my preferred method). But it sucks in cases like during the Super Bowl. The last few notes of the national anthem, she was flat! Like flatter than a tire! It’s like nails on a chalkboard when someone hits a sour note… But I digress… I was so excited to have an in tune piano that I took time out of the house cleaning I did that day to play. That’s also a zen thing for me. I just love to play the piano.

However, I’m still waiting on my glasses. The lenses finally came in yesterday, but, sadly, they didn’t have time to fit the lenses in the frames. Come on, people! I’ve never waited this long from this office for glasses! Monday it will be two weeks! I mean, yeah, a big part of me wants them for vanity. But I also want to see better. Besides, my current frames are beat up, I have a good sized scratch in one lens and the transitions shit has been wearing off for a while and you can see the weird spots in the lenses.

So this week has been a mess of big and little disasters…

The one I’m most concerned about is this insurance bullshit… If I can’t afford to see my doctors, how will I get my meds?! I can’t go without them or I’ll really get fucked up. And now that I finally found a doctor who will do knee replacements that I desperately need on someone my age (most people say I’m “too young”, yeah, okay) I won’t be able to afford those, either. I really need a hug…

I Don’t Understand The Rules Anymore…

Is it because I’m old…? Seriously, it’s because I’m old, isn’t it…? That’s why I don’t understand the rules and how the world works today, right? It’s because I’m fucking old…

Okay, I’m not exactly old… To millennials I’m probably old, yeah. Normally, I only feel old physically. Thanks to my ovaries shitting out on me and needing removal at such a young age, it kicked things into overdrive, like the arthritis I was already suffering in my knees. Now it’s in a bunch of other places, so… But mentally? Hell, on a good day, I feel 16! I wish my body felt 16… That would be great to have my mind and body match, wouldn’t it…? Sadly, they don’t. And then, on occasion, things happen or are said that I’m just totally confused about and have to ask what this is all about, thus proving that, even though I feel 16 mentally, I don’t understand what’s going on in the world of the younger generation. It took me years to figure out what tbh meant… And I had to ask someone…

Now, as to why I don’t understand the rules…

One of my “friends” on Facebook had posted a Lisa Simpson meme that had me puzzled the way it was written. I tried to google it, but I couldn’t find it. Shocking… Anyway, what I do remember was that the phrase “white people” was used almost every other word, which in and of itself made it confusing, and was along the lines of “If you’re a white person who’s not sick of white people…” It just went on and on and made no sense. After seeing it in my news feed for a few days, I commented that I was puzzled as to what the meme was getting at. The reply was insulting, for one. What was more insulting was his use of big ten cent words to try to make himself look intelligent and make me look stupid. I know my IQ; I’m not stupid. And I doubt he knows what misogynistic means (he also misspelled it, the idiot…)

“L” is for loser and this guy on Facepuke…

The gist of the meme, from what I took from his rambling, was that it was geared toward white people who cause suffering to others, hate other races, gays, blah blah… I responded that I was still confused. I feel indifferently towards idiots like that because, if you don’t, you’re just spreading hate yourself, which is the very thing you want to stop. It makes no sense. To which, I got an even nastier reply that seriously pissed me the fuck off. I also got one from another of his friends. I blocked them both and said “fuck you”. But it left me in a bad state last night…

I think what bothered me most was that, suddenly, I’m the bad guy. I’m one of those “white people” that “white people” are sick of. I’m sorry… what the fuck did you say?! No one knows me well enough to make that assessment. Honestly, I think the asshole got so pissed off at me because he knew I was right. He’s also spreading hate by saying he’s a “white person” who is sick of “white people”. Indifference is the way to go. You feel nothing towards them and thus they have no power over you or anyone else.

I was so pissed, I actually wrote a post regarding this to clear things up for all the people who think they know me and know nothing…

My views are, it’s stupid to hate any race. It’s especially stupid to hate your own race. I’m sorry, that doesn’t make you cool or hip or whatever the fuck the terminology is that is used now. It makes you a douchebag for trying to look cool/hip/what the fuck ever…

I have never and will never judge people based on their color, race, creed, religious affiliation, sexual orientation. An asshole is an asshole. They come in all colors, all religious sects and sexual orientations. I don’t see that when judging a person. Obviously I don’t because I judged this guy as an asshole and guess what… He’s white, just like me… I don’t tolerate hate or drama. I’m entitled to my opinion as much as you are yours. I expect people to respect my opinion as I do theirs. And if they feel a need to express theirs, do it like a fucking adult. I don’t have time for childish high school bullshit. I’m too fucking old and have gotten beyond that. And if people can’t accept it, block me. I won’t miss you…

Will I lose friends over this…? Probably… I hope I don’t, but I need to be realistic, here. As George says, “Some people are really fucking stupid” and he was right. Some of them are. A lot of them are…

I seriously don’t understand the rules of this world anymore… I’m not against any race, I’m not against any religion (this is coming from an atheist, mind you), I’m not against any sexual orientation… Hell, one of my dearest friends is gay and I loved him the minute I met him. When he first started dating his husband, I told him he was a keeper. I love them both dearly. I may still have difficulty understanding transgender and pansexual people, but I’m working on that. I think I get the pansexual thing, but transgender is hard to wrap my head around. I grew up in a different age where that wasn’t a thing you spoke of. So I’m still learning.

To add insult to injury… Yesterday, while on the phone with my friend, I suddenly realized, “Oh fuck! The piano tuner is coming today in like five minutes!!!” The top of my old, ugly ass spinet is covered with all sorts of things (picture frames, candles, a Precious Moments boy sitting at a piano that’s a music box, my dogs ashes…) and I had all of five minutes to get it all off. I went into insane panic mode, ripping shit off the top of the piano and finding it a temporary home. I made it! He hadn’t arrived yet! And more than a half hour later, he still hadn’t arrived… So I called the place I use and the guy seemed kind of flustered and said he had me down for the 18th… No you didn’t… When I made the appointment, I had sent out a text to someone about it and guess what? I read back through until I found the text, which said the 11th at noon. Busted! I was pissed, so the guy made the appointment for tomorrow. He better be here…

I have no patience waiting for new glasses…

And I’m still waiting on my new glasses…

I have no patience waiting for glasses, I really don’t. Part of it is for reasons of vanity. I can’t wait to have that cool new look! My other reasons are much more practical… I want to be able to fucking see! Seriously, I’m getting tired of people looking at me funny and asking me things like, “How hard is it for you to see _____?” How hard is it…? It’s real fucking hard! I have horrible distance vision, everyone knows it and yet I still get asked this idiotic question!

This is why I get so anxious for my new glasses… I hate people asking that stupid question, I hate the fact that I can’t see well enough that I’m comfortable driving because my eyes are so screwed up right now… Today is 10 days. I better get that call that they’re in.

I really think I need more than a zen moment right now…

Actually, I’ve been doing fairly well on my spiritual journey towards peace and enlightenment. I still have a very long way to go, but I’ve been feeling so much better since I started. I seem to shrug things off more easily than before and remain calm in slightly stressful situations.

That’s not to say I don’t get stressed… If the situation is really stressful, I still have my freak out moments, but they’re not nearly as bad as they used to be. Score! Hey, whether it really works or is complete bullshit is irrelevant. I’ve been feeling better and more like myself. As long as I believe in it and it helps, that’s what matters.

And just for shits and giggles, I’ll leave you with an animated GIF file I made a long time ago…

This is Aki from the J-Rock band SID. The clip I used was from their video for the song “Sweet?” I could watch Aki rip that tie off and toss it away all day long… It’s distracting me as I type this… Well, anyway, I decided to throw this in because the forums I made them for are now defunct and I have no other use for them. I probably made hundreds of them and they just sit there, wasting space and doing nothing. I happened to see this one yesterday and thought what the hell, I’ll add it to my next entry for fun. And for eye candy… I really do love the way he strips off that tie…

Join Me For A Coffee And A Chat…

My friend gives the best Christmas gifts

Sit back, relax… Grab a cup of coffee and join me for a chat.

Speaking of coffee… My best friend got me this Corgi mug for Christmas. Isn’t it cute? She always gets the best gifts for Christmas and my birthday. I have no idea where she finds half this shit, but when it comes to unique gifts, she seems to be a real pro at it!

I, on the other hand, am not as good… I honestly think it’s just because I’m too lazy to do much searching. If I see something I think a person would like when I’m out and about, I’ll pick it up for them, but I have no desire to do the whole online searching for the perfect present thing.

Speaking of Corgis…

My best buddy, Baxter, is proving to be a really strange animal… He audibly belches, which is nothing unusual for dogs, really. But he also audibly farts, which is a little weird. Most dogs are masters of the “silent but deadly” farts, except my dog. Worse, he tries to blame them on people instead of people blaming them on the dog. One day, he walked past me and, as he got a few feet away, he farted (loudly, I might add) and immediately turned around and looked me right in the eye as if he thought I had done it or he was blaming it on me! Yeah, I don’t think so, pal…

He also has this really weird habit of standing on his front legs, hind legs stretched out behind him, and starts dragging himself across the carpet. He’s neutered, so I have no idea what this is all about. I mean… is he rubbing his dick across the carpet?! What the fuck is he doing?! He’s a very strange animal… I suppose that’s why we kind of chose each other, because we’re both a half bubble off center. Sometimes a whole bubble off…

I have to remember this joke for next time…

Today is a week since I had my eye exam that went much like this cartoon. I have to remember to say this at my next exam!

They told me my new glasses would be in within 7 to 10 days, so I called in hopes that they had them. No luck… However, they get shipments every day, usually late morning or early afternoon, so there’s still a chance.

I really need to know ASAP… I haven’t been driving if I can possibly help it because my vision keeps pulling out to the sides when I drive and I have to pull them back into focus and center them. It’s really difficult to correct my issue, so I’m not feeling safe while I’m driving right now. It’s nothing bad, just a slight astigmatism that returned. Still, I don’t trust my driving. I have someone who passes my eye doctor every day on the way home from work and have arranged for them to pick up my glasses for me. But I need to know as soon as is humanly possible. I hate informing people of things last minute…

A few days ago, I went to a new age shop I found that was quite a drive from me. It’s not the best picture, but I found a chakra charm that I put on this necklace I bought. The locket is for adding oils to. There are small pieces of felt that come with it you put the oil on and place in the locket.

Which means no one will want to be anywhere near me, haha! My favorite, soothing scent is patchouli and most people I know think it smells bad. But for me, it’s heavenly! It really relaxes me and puts me at peace. And I chose the butterfly. At the time, I didn’t know why, but then I remembered in my last entry I had been talking about coming out of my chrysalis and spreading my wings to fly. My sub conscience was hard at work that day.

I also made a great find that really made me happy…

The Americanized version of my favorite anime (Kagaku Ninja Tai Gatchaman) was heavily butchered and titled Battle of the Planets. I was about 6 years old and completely obsessed with the show. Finding anything from that show (or the original, for that matter) is getting more and more impossible as the years go by. Thankfully I have amassed a decent collection already. But this blew my mind! It was on Facebook Marketplace, this old metal lunchbox, for $25! It really took me back to my childhood! It’s now in my collection!

Today’s blog has been brought to yo buy total randomness…

Seriously, I just felt like babbling about nothing in particular, just whatever came to mind. Sometimes I’ll do that for no reason. I never understand why myself…

So I hope you enjoyed this little coffee session and chat about random things that aren’t of any major importance. It’s been real!

The Self Improvement of Jackie Blue…

As I mentioned in my last entry, I’ve been working on some self improvements after I’ve gotten rid of all the toxicity in my life…

I haven’t liked myself much for a long time. I’m not sure I ever liked myself much. My entire life, I’ve marched to my own drummer and, over time, I realized people didn’t appreciate such individuality. To get along in this world, I had to hide the real me, which eventually led me to hide the real me from myself. But now, most of the people I felt I had to adapt for are either out of my life or dead. I’m beginning to spread my wings so I can fly again.

However, I seem to have a major issue with the name thing… Part of my self improvement was deciding I wanted to be called Jackie as opposed to the name I was saddled with at birth that I always hated and I felt never suited me. But it seems some of my friends and family are still using my given name, despite my asking them to do otherwise. I’m finding that annoying and disheartening. It’s my choice. I wish they could respect it.

Strange and off kilter as that person may be…

I think everyone is thinking this is nothing but a phase I’m going through. Kind of like when I was 16 or 17 and the phase was looking pale, wearing all black, wearing heavy black eyeliner, looking like a vampire… It was like the precursor to “emo”. My mother figured it was a phase I’d grow out of. I did, of course, but only after about a year of therapy to help me deal with my bipolar bullshit.

But this isn’t a phase… I’m not a teen trying to find myself and fit in at the same time. I’m a grown woman. I’m not trying to be someone new. I’m being the person I’ve always been and no one ever noticed, that’s all.

Maybe one day people will learn to accept who I am, who I’ve always been . I’m tired of trying to be someone else to “fit in”, whether with family and friends, coworkers or society in general. I’m mentally, physically and emotionally tired of it.

True story… I had this art teacher in elementary school who, decidedly, had a weird last name. When I was still young, he and his wife divorced and he left to move to California. I assume it was to find himself after the divorce… Anyway, he returned a few years later. We were all so excited and called him by his last name, which he told us was no longer his last name. Apparently he found himself (and a new wife) and had legally changed his name. I seemed to be the only kid who had no problem making the change.

I suppose I shouldn’t be so hard on everyone… I mean, my art teacher had a legal name change and still everyone had an issue trying to remember to use his new name for a long time. My mother seems to be the one most upset. After all, she liked my name which is why she chose it. My sister, on the other hand, said it would depend on what I wanted to be called. Maybe I should give them time.

With my new changes (name, finding spirituality, getting rid of toxic people) I decided I needed a new self portrait. Honestly, I don’t care for it… But, as my go-to friend, my voice of reason, told me, I haven’t drawn much of anything in 3 months. Seriously, I hadn’t… I was in an awful art slump. Normally, I get depressed and don’t feel myself during these slumps. That may be hard to understand… I draw and/or write stories every single day. I’m always being creative. So when I’m in a bad slump, it’s like I don’t know what to do with myself. Art is like air to me… Plus I always worry that, when my creativity is on the fritz, this may be it. Maybe my psyche meds have finally killed the last of my creativity. But for those three months, I didn’t even care…

About a week ago, the local radio station was playing a lot of 80s tunes I grew up with. One happened to be Duran Duran’s “Rio”. I haven’t heard that song in years (despite having the album on an LP, cassette and CD), and since it’s one of my favorite albums, I decided to download it from iTunes…

It was $8… That’s what one of my favorite albums from childhood was worth, $8… Wow, way to make me feel old, Apple, thanks… Anyway, I downloaded it and the very next morning, I slapped on my headphones, turned on my iPod and listened to the whole album. That was when I came up with this drawing. I listened to that album for about three days in a row. I think it paid off. I’m pretty proud of this drawing.

Maybe people don’t understand my changes, coming out of my chrysalis to be the butterfly I’ve always been, but I’d like to think they at least can see that I’ve been different, happier.

It certainly shows in my art, I think. After a three month slump, I’m finally making art again. Maybe I’ll start pushing past my boundaries and make the best art I’ve ever created. Who knows?

And soon I’ll be doing a new portrait… I had an eye doctor appointment a few days ago because, you know, I’m pretty blind with distance. And my astigmatism has come back a little. Thankfully my close vision is still 20/20! I was planning on just getting new lenses in my old frames, but they’re old and scuffed. And I should never shop for frames… I’m like a kid in a candy store! I couldn’t make up my mind, so I ended up getting two pair… Bad Jackie! Ah well… At least I can redo my portrait with my new frames soon…